


Coffin Dancer

by docnoctem



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: AU where the occult rules are made up and death doesn't matter!, Excessive Drinking, M/M, a bummer but maybe not in the way death would generally imply?, being sad men with sad lives, but note that it's still morbid subject matter, forgoing archive warnings because the death is impermanent, poor decision making, standard warnings for these two apply:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-07 20:34:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16415486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/docnoctem/pseuds/docnoctem
Summary: "You're a little overripe for my taste." In which Stuart digs graves while Murdoc fails to stay in one, and it's not quite the comedy of errors it ought to be. Alternately:How Stuart (Never Really) Learned to Stop Worrying and (Failed to) Love a Living Corpse.It's just not very hygienic, is it?





	Coffin Dancer

**Author's Note:**

> Hi again! This is a bit odd, to be frank, and I'm unsure how to introduce it to you. I sort of had the idea "What if you wrote a story around Murdoc's skin turning green... except, y'know, you also just made it as depressing as possible?" This was the result of that. I really do hope someone will enjoy it though! Title is from Coffin Dance by AJJ.

_The coffin dancer dances like he has something to prove, because he does_  
_Sleeps a couple hours in the morning; hates the mourning when he wakes up_

 

The last, low rolls of mist slip between headstones and into the cobble walkway, feeding on the fading damp of night until heavy footfalls cut through it. A lanky man walks the cemetery path without the aid of a lantern, his steps well-rehearsed. Graying duffel bag slung over one shoulder and metal cigarette case knocking over his heart in the opposite breast pocket, Stuart breathes deeply and appreciates the humid air, fresh and pleasantly thick in his lungs—he only craves it more knowing the coming daylight will dry it again soon.

The items inside the bag shift and resettle; metal clinks against glass and, a bit quieter, liquid sloshes back and forth. Stuart grips the strap sliding down his shoulder and secures it closer to him before turning off the walkway and into the wet grass, stepping purposefully between looming monuments and modest placards, assured in his route to the familiar resting place ahead.

An open grave mars the otherwise clean and green expanse of grass, the stark drop in the earth looking eerily like a pit to the underworld in the sunless early morning. That hollowness has a deceptively short reach—at the bottom, unburied not even six feet below, sits a shoddy wooden casket. Stuart lets the bag fall from his shoulder and onto the ground as he kneels next to the grave’s edge and begins to unpack. Among the assorted bottles of whiskey and an unmarked hip flask is a rope ladder, worn with use but still strong, fastened at either end to thick railroad spikes. He arranges the bottles in a display that seems amusingly formal given their backdrop and allows himself a grin at that before picking up two of the metal stakes and pressing them into the soil, far back enough from the open edge to ensure firm footing. Standing and popping his back as he stretches upward, Stuart braces a heel against the metal, leaning his full weight forward to drive it in further.

Once satisfied that both sides are secure, he gives a kick to the piled rope; anchored by matching spikes on the other end, it unfurls into the grave, knocking loudly against the casket on impact.

He peers into the blackness for a beat, and then two, and then he’s dropping down into it, one hand anchoring his body gracelessly on the ladder. He finds his footing in the narrow space around the coffin, and kneels closer to inspect it. The thin layer of dirt on the lid is barely noticeable in the dark, doing little to obscure the symbol painted beneath, and Stuart drags his hand through it with a sort of idle melancholy, pushing the soil as far to the corners as it can go. He makes something of an earthy frame around the upper edges of the box, and it seems like it  _might_  be respectful, or might be nothing at all; wet patches stick to his palm and he doesn’t really know what he’s stalling for, doesn’t know what he should mean with the gesture. He stares at the closed lid just a little longer before sighing, rolling his neck in a jokingly athletic show of resolve, and pulling the lid open easily. It isn’t secured shut.

The man inside looks decent, circumstances considered, but the dirt slipping through the poorly-structured wood and staining his clothing will be more noticeable in daylight. His face is still, though it's hard to ever describe him as seeming peaceful, made up from brow to breastbone of strong and somewhat undesirable angles. Stuart sort of likes those though, he supposes: the parts that don't change. There's something reassuring, if a bit unnatural, to that. It's his  _skin_  that calls the worry up. He's greener than the last time Stuart saw him. He never looks much older, and never looks much better either— but every time, he looks a little greener.

He pats the man’s shirt pocket and finds a matchbook, as he knew he would, and he holds it tight to his palm as he retreats back up the rope ladder and seats himself at the grave’s edge. He tucks it in with his cigarette case and resists the pull to light one straight away; he’s spent enough time smoking alone. It’d be a welcome treat to share the vice again. Stuart sees the beginnings of daylight barely coloring the horizon and his pulse feels like it’s buzzing. The sun would be up soon—and with it, the man in the coffin.

Stuart’s lost count of how many times he’s buried the man called Murdoc over a stretch nearing on two decades, but it never quite seems to take. He’d laugh at that cheeky remark years ago, but he’s become middle-aged and sort of lost that sense of humor when Murdoc isn’t there laughing with him. Looking down at him now, his tan skin turned pallid and his crowing voice gone silent, it doesn’t feel especially funny.

As remiss as he is to admit it, Stu can’t really recall all the gritty details of the many times he’s laid him to rest—or unrest, as it were. It seems frightening, or callous, or just stupendously drunk that something so morbid could ever become mundane to him, but he finds that those nights of digging and the drinking at dawn start to overlap the older he gets. What still stands stark and well-defined in the brightest part of his memory, try as he might to dim it, is a version of Murdoc that isn’t so green.

 

* * *

 

Despite poor appearances and disparaging whispers in town, Stuart counts himself immensely fortunate to be employed to keep up graveyard maintenance. The job provides him a meager salary, barely enough to eat off of, but it does offer him room and board in a tiny ramshackle house at the cemetery’s edge called the “keeper’s quarters.” The landowner and cemetery proprietor Sebastian Niccals, surviving patriarch of a family line far below the standing it once had, is an abrasive man with unkind eyes… but he’s willing to extend to him an opportunity for independence he’s scarcely been given, and for that Stuart is forgiving of his odd nature. The experiences that led him to the graveyard gave him some perspective on the value of an opportunity: at age 16, Stuart had been returning from town, no more than a few minutes from his home when he was thrown from the family’s horse, his skull making devastating contact with the base of an oak tree in his fall. A riding accident had taken his father’s life years before, but Stuart—thick-headed and indestructible as youth is blessed to be—had miraculously survived. The damage done to his head would become gradually apparent in the following weeks, but the damage done to his eyes was instantaneous: dark blood saturated them just beneath the surface, leaving him with the haunting appearance of two blackened craters in his face. For weeks his mother wept at his bedside in gratitude that he’d lived, and wept at her own bedside in guilt over what was left of him.

After his accident, Stuart had met a great deal of frustration with his studies, the many numbers and letters often seeming jumbled and hard to parse. It became rather plainly seen that a scholar’s future wasn’t one he was suited to anymore. He’d soothed his mother’s worries as best he knew how, his rationale simple and his confidence unfettered, but he’d found upon venturing into the working world that his hands weren’t as steady as he’d once known them to be. Writing notes in the apothecary, basic hemming with the tailor, even chopping vegetables in the pub’s kitchen proved challenging, and keeping down a job in town became a game of sympathy with the timer always ticking. His mum would take his hand over the dinner table and look just above his eyes, assuring him that they would be alright. Her voice would veer into lilting, higher than he could remember from before the accident, and she’d smile as if by default whether he noticeably stammered giving the news or not.

He doesn’t really remember hitting the tree, but he believes those dinners were worse.

Shortly after turning 22, Sebastian grants him freedom from that. The joy that rings out in his muffled mind when he manages to keep his grip on the shovel’s handle is crisp and clear and beautiful, the burn in his muscles a deeply welcome feeling—he’s of  _use_  to someone. The validation he feels as he crams his too-long body into the small bed in the keeper’s quarters is completely transfixing. It’s intoxicating.

During their initial walk of the grounds Sebastian informs him that he has two sons, and soon they will be all that remains of the Niccals line. His eldest, Hannibal, had moved out of the dilapidated estate years before and worked in town as a blacksmith. Stuart’s aware of this as he would see him on occasion when he’d worked odd jobs, but he had the same hardened eyes as his father, and Stu had little reason to seek him out then. He sees him even less once he’s living on his father’s property than he did before. His youngest son, Murdoc, is still more than 10 years Stuart’s senior and shows no ambition of leaving the estate for good, nor of leaving it to do much of anything but drink to delirium at the pub. Sebastian’s tone feels cruel and discouraging of any further conversation on the matter, and Stuart sees no reason why he should press.

As the months pass, he becomes accustomed to his fairly grim lifestyle, and he finds that he minds the isolation less with each day. He sees little of the family he works under, but he’s never truly unaware of their presence. There are times, few and far between, when he’ll catch Murdoc skulking about the cemetery in the daylight, reading the headstones baring his own family name as if he were just a passing stranger, and watching Stuart in sidelong glances. He makes no effort to speak to him during these outings, and that suits Stuart just fine; there is a tightness to the line of his mouth that never quite eases, and whether his eyes match his father’s seems a negligible point as they’re near impossible to see at a distance under the fringe that falls too low over them. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever have any need to speak to Murdoc until his father croaks.

That changes in late January. It’s past midnight and Stuart’s struggling to sleep through the biting cold in the keeper’s quarters. He’d begun to frequent the pub a bit more in these winter months for the sole purpose of finding another bed to stay warm in; the regular bargirls were quite fond of Stuart, most being rather enamored with his height and striking eyes, and he rarely had much trouble earning an invitation. He’d always had a natural charisma, and after a grace period he’d learned his “unique” features could be spun to help more than they hurt, at least in this one arena; that was a fair enough trade to Stuart. It was far from a foolproof system though, and this simply wasn’t a winning night for him—Paula had always been the holdout. After a particularly strong shiver makes him bite his tongue, he hoists himself out of the narrow bed and opts to pull on his boots and a second coat and take his chances finding enough debris outside to light a fire. He keeps the cemetery proper cleaned of it, but he reckons he’s tall enough to reach a low-hanging branch on one of the dying trees, and with any luck it’d be weak enough to snap at least an end off. He’s only just shut the door when he spots an odd figure standing at the end of the path, and he knows straight away that it’s Murdoc, surely returning empty-handed from the pub himself.

At first glance, this isn’t necessarily unusual. Murdoc has few passions that Stuart can observe—in fairness, he has few interests at all that Stuart can observe, knowing as little about him as he does—but his love of liquor, strong and cheap and in absolutely no moderation, is very apparent. He stumbles back onto the property in a drunken stupor almost nightly, and his success in navigating the fairly straightforward cemetery path and back up the short hill to his home varies night to night. Most often he looks an impressively functioning level of smashed, but there were times when Stuart would watch over the grounds from his window and spot him stopping to get his bearings three or four times along the clear, direct line of the walkway. He’d try to help (and succeed more in amusing himself) by unlatching his door and calling out to him to just keep going forward, and Murdoc would look briefly terrified by the unknown voice commanding him in the darkness before carrying on. This, though… it feels different from those nights.

Murdoc’s stopped at the very end of the walkway, just before the cemetery gate, but he isn’t wavering and he doesn’t appear to be disoriented. It looks as if he’s simply standing there in the freezing dark, unwilling to pass the gate that separates him from the path he’s standing on and the path to his door. It’s an arbitrary distinction, the two paths, but the stiller Murdoc stays rooted to that spot, the more Stuart can’t help but notice it and wonder if the other man is hesitating to pass—or if he’s just too inebriated to know he can. Stepping onto the cobblestone and huffing visibly in the frigid air, he approaches him quietly, unsure how to best avoid startling him.

“You alright there, mate?”

His back stiffens, standing just slightly taller, but he doesn’t turn around.

“You just, uh—you keep going forward.”

“Piss off.”

Stuart starts a bit at the gruff voice, not really expecting him to answer, and not expecting him to sound as sober as he does either. He doesn’t much appreciate the tone but isn’t interested in drawing this out. He’d rather just get Murdoc back to the estate so he can find his kindling or die of hypothermia in peace.

“I’ll do that, then. I don’t need a gargoyle out here though, so… you just keep going forward.” He lifts an arm to point at the darkened building ahead, his elbow level with Murdoc’s eyeline. Murdoc makes a move to argue with him and nearly turns directly into his chest. Stuart can smell the whiskey on his clothes and in his hair and decides that maybe sounding ‘more sober than expected’ isn’t saying that much after all.

“Maybe I don’t feel like going forward, s’that alright with you keeper?” Any venom in his voice is pretty well-weighted down by the stench of booze, and Stuart feels a little bit sorry that he’s out in the cold like this and a large bit exasperated for the same reason.

“Well… there’s no sense in goin’ backwards now, is there? That doesn’t get you anywhere.” He reasons slowly, for the drunk man’s benefit as well as his own. Murdoc curls his lip disparagingly but doesn’t disagree. The wind kicks up behind him, and Stuart brings his hands up to his mouth and cups them around his breath to savor the heat. The other watches him for a moment, and then suddenly he’s gripping the cuffs of Stuart’s sleeves intently, and the crazed way he’s looking at him makes Stu worry he’s somehow going to catch the spins from him.

“You have the shitty little tool-shed, yeah? You live there…” Murdoc says, as if he’s explaining it to himself. Stu notes that everything on the property could aptly come with the qualifier ‘shitty.’

“It’s called the keeper’s quarters and it belongs to your dad, thanks. And I’d like to find something aside from it to burn for warmth, so if you could just… y’know, start on ahead up the path. Cheers and all that.”

Murdoc grins at him, and it’s among the least encouraging sights he’s ever seen.

“That’s not where you’d like to cozy up, though. What’s wrong? Couldn’t find anyone sloshed enough to let you sweat out your soil-stink in their nice clean sheets?” Stuart’s unimpressed frown sinks even further. “It was Paula pouring drinks tonight, wasn’t it? Tough time swindling her? It wasn’t for me.”

“She’s coming around—though I don’t take it you’d know what it’s like to make progress.” The other chuckles at that, but Stuart isn’t feeling very friendly. “I do a right sight better than you.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re a real  _keeper_.” His proud smile is wide and rather ugly. “So what do all the exceedingly selective ladies ‘round the bottle call you then?”

Murdoc’s fingers untwist from his sleeves and start moving up his arms, one coming to rest on his shoulder, and it seems like he’s putting on a show of behaving even tipsier than he really is. It’s hard to tell with Stuart nearly feeling lightheaded from the thick, well-seeped liquor smell wafting off of his clothes already.

“Stuart,” he says without favor, “and forget what I said before, feel free to go back the way you came.” He tries turning away, and Murdoc barely avoids tripping over himself following his movement.

“Suppose if I don’t fancy going forwards or backwards, I could just stay here.” His voice almost sounds seductive, but lands more on the side of sleazy.

“Listen, it’s late and it’s goddamned freezing out here. I don’t recommend that.”

“I didn’t mean out here.” He’s gripping Stuart’s collar now, and the taller instinctively leans further away. “You said it yourself: you’ve got to keep warm. If you let me in, Stu… I’ll do the same for you.” His tongue is trapped between his teeth, the end just barely slipping past his upper lip.

The wind gains strength as it surges past them and Stuart feels chilled from the inside-out.

“I’ll live. Go on up the hill. There’s nothin’ for you in the quarters, Murdoc.” It dawns on him that he’s never actually had cause to say his name out loud before, and the cadence of it feels strained and weird in his mouth.

Murdoc’s hold trembles in the breeze and then tightens, and he tries futilely to pull Stuart down to him.

“We’re—we’re just not understanding each other. All you have to do is take me back to your little shack, and you can split me open and climb inside. Are you getting that? You can  _fuck_  me, Stu.” His voice is little more than a coarse whisper, and it doesn’t sound so slurring or purring now. “Promise t’keep you warm through the night. You’ve just got to let me stay with you, that’s all. Let me stay.”

Stuart wants to blame the weather for the cold, dense, unpleasant shape taking form in his stomach as Murdoc looks up at him, his normally obstructive fringe scattered by the wind and his eyes clearer to him now than he’s ever seen them. They don’t look like his father’s. It might be romantic to think they look passionate or pleading, might encourage some small burst of warmth that he’d then willfully ignore, but that isn’t really what he sees. To Stuart he looks absolutely manic. The hard line of his mouth hasn’t lost any tension, and his wild eyes stay unnervingly locked on Stuart’s own. It’s been so long since a stranger’s held eye contact with him that he doesn’t quite know what to do with it anymore. Murdoc bares his teeth in a smile that looks desperate and out of place, and Stu’s never felt less heated in his life.

Reading his stunned silence as consideration, Murdoc takes a step backwards toward the keeper’s quarters, tugging Stuart along after him; he loses his footing in his numbed state and has to catch himself on the shorter man to keep upright. Murdoc practically melts at that and does nothing to support him, his shoulders sloping downward under the weight of his hands in an attempt to pull Stuart further around him. His leer looks a little more real now, but it doesn’t look any more right. His breath is hot and sour on the other’s face and Stuart jerks away, staggering to put some distance between them.

“I’m not going to—“ he starts, louder and harsher than he means to, and Murdoc briefly looks so small that he cuts his voice down to meet him. “It’s, it’s fine if you’re… I’m not going to say anything about this to your dad, alright? But you can’t stay with me.”

Murdoc doesn’t look hurt or angry at the rejection, not really. He just looks like so much less than he had before. His theatrical expressions fall to something too smooth and uncomplicated; he looks resigned, and Stuart doesn’t have the right wiring in his head to sort out what’s so jarring about that. He swallows hard and chooses not to make it his concern.

“Go home, Murdoc.”

“I don’t want to.” Murdoc doesn’t say it with any coyness, he says it like a child might.

“I can’t help you with that.”

He turns and walks briskly back to the keeper’s quarters, forsaking his firewood in favor of avoiding any further protests. He latches the door behind him and leans against it, all the air in his lungs leaving him as the cold of the wood seeps through his layers. Gooseflesh prickles up and down his spine and his palms feel clammy. Asking himself too many questions about the exchange doesn’t seem like a warm or soothing prospect, so he shelves it. He stays still and silent until his curiosity pulls him off the door, and he hesitates at the side of the window for a moment before bowing down to check if Murdoc’s still waiting in the cold. He spots his outline back where it had started, but this time he looks to be shuffling at a pathetic pace past the gate. That’s good enough. Stuart keeps his boots and both of his coats on and lies flat on his back in the narrow bed. He doesn’t sleep through to the morning, but he closes his eyes and pretends he’s just at the edge of drifting off. That’s good enough as well.

Days pass, and Stuart keeps the encounter pressed as far to the back of his mind as he can manage—a feat that is considerably less difficult on the night his favorite barmaid Paula finally brings him home with her. His breath stinks of the only beer he can afford, and his trousers have muddy stains on the knees to match his dirtied nails, and his words feel too vulgar on his tongue until he’s feeling them on her tongue instead. He doesn’t see Murdoc lurking around the graveyard or even at the pub, which might be worrying if he didn’t already have this prior commitment to not worrying about him.

All the while, the crumbling estate looking down at the cemetery from atop the hill is as silent and unchanging as ever—and then it isn’t. It’s very rare that Sebastian is seen roaming outside, and rarer for him to venture all the way to the keeper’s quarters to fetch Stuart; he didn’t handle embalming or funerary preparations, after all, in truth he merely dug holes and pulled weeds. It’s late and it’s freezing and he’s weighing the odds that Paula would have him for another go if he tried again so soon when a knock comes to his door. Sebastian’s on the other side telling him to bring a wheelbarrow up to the estate, and Stu’s surprised but compliant because being anything else isn’t really an option. The house is unlit from the outside and his dull eyes aren’t doing him any favors, but he slows his stride and stops the wheelbarrow by what he hopes is the door. He’s not sure if it matters for him to wipe his shoes or not, considering the poor state of the old house, but Sebastian doesn’t bother so he follows his example. The first thing he notices upon entering is his elder son Hannibal stood to the far side of the entryway, and that feels very wrong somehow despite him having a much clearer right to be there than Stuart does. His arms aren’t quite crossed but more tucked around himself, though his brutish brow and the stone-like cut of his jaw offset any vulnerability of the pose. Stuart wonders what’s brought him up here. The second thing he notices is that Murdoc isn’t with him, and for a regrettable moment he’s relieved not to have to stand in the same room as he and his father after their meeting.

“My son is dead.” Sebastian tells him the news like he’s telling him his rose bushes have died.

Stuart fails to react, feeling a somber sense of nothingness wash over him, a sense of lacking some needed piece to make the feeling whole. His mind goes quiet except for Murdoc’s brusque dizzy laugh and he tries very hard not to think of where it stopped. He doesn’t know if he should feel guilty, but he supposes wondering that seems like answer enough. Stu looks to Sebastian’s face, seeking some glimmer of loss in his eyes, but Sebastian is looking past him to Hannibal with the same indifference he’s always shown, and with a sinking sickness it occurs to him that whatever guilt he bears may be purely circumstantial and he’s likely  _not_  the one in this room with blood on his hands. Hannibal nods to his father and disappears into the parlor, and the two are left in uneasy silence.

Stuart keeps his voice as low and even as he can and offers a cautious “I’m so sorry—“ but Sebastian lifts a hand to stop him.

“You’ll need to begin before daybreak,” he says without really looking at Stuart, “and it’s important that this is handled privately. I’d like to keep it in the family. Do you think of yourself as family, Stuart?”

He doesn’t. He never has. He doesn’t much intend to start now. His lack of mortuary training seems like the bigger issue at hand though; it’s an issue he’s able to address, at least.

“The thing is, sir, I don’t exactly know how to… do the things you’re supposed to do. For the most, uh, most respectful preparation of…” He hesitates.  _Of Murdoc. Of your son._  “…Of the body.”

“No need. He won’t be embalmed, and he won’t require a headstone.” There’s a distance in his tone, and Stuart thinks of Murdoc’s hands on his collar and his breath on his face, and he wonders how much about his son Sebastian knew; he wonders how cruel a father could really be. “Hannibal will bring down the casket.”

Stuart’s a little surprised to hear he’s gone through the trouble of getting a proper coffin for him, fearing that he was essentially being asked to hide a body. Then Hannibal returns from the parlor and Stuart stops feeling anything.

Murdoc’s got an oversized black suit coat pulled over his shoulders, big enough to swallow his short frame, and the crisp and clean button-up he’s wearing underneath strikes the keeper as oddly dissonant from the sloppy drunkard he’d thought him to be. His fringe is still covering half of his closed eyelids, and the hard line of his mouth hasn’t softened. He looks even smaller now in his brother’s arms than he did when Stuart shouted at him. Hannibal passes by him to where his father is holding the door open, and he can’t smell the whiskey or the street-sold gin seeping from his clothes anymore; he smells faintly like copper, and Stuart’s knees lock up.

Hannibal deposits him in the wheelbarrow with only the slightest measure of care, crooking his legs roughly so they wouldn’t hang over the front but then stopping, in what Stuart wants to see as a show of kindness, to pull the coat tighter around him. Then Hannibal straightens up to meet his eyes, grimaces at Stuart’s empty blackened stare, and looks beyond him. He doesn’t speak to Stu or to Sebastian, but he gives his father a long parting look as he walks across the garden toward the back of the estate.

It might’ve been seen as a gesture of good faith for Stuart to offer Hannibal his help, but the eerily serene picture Murdoc’s curled body makes nails him to where he stands. His knees are almost touching his chest and his drooping head leans to the side just enough for his fringe to fall away with it, and all Stuart’s quieted mind really knows how to think is that he almost looks like he could be heavy with sleep—but he doesn’t believe that, because he can’t imagine him looking so peaceful and cozy at rest. He doesn’t really know that, though. He doesn’t get to know that.

He wants to ask Sebastian how it happened. He wants to ask him if Murdoc was alone at the end. He wants to ask if he’s really going to bury his son without a funeral, without a headstone, without  _anything_  that would acknowledge he’d ever been his son at all.

Then he sees the spots where his white shirt goes red under the coat, and he feels too sick to ask.

Sebastian leaves him with the promise that his aid in this wouldn’t go unnoticed, and an unsettling assurance that they would both see Murdoc again; he doesn’t really take Sebastian for a religious man and the condolence sounds misplaced and cryptic. He stays there for a while longer, letting the cold seep as far into his bones as he can stand and willing his senses to dull. His eyes grow wearier until the black of Murdoc’s hair gets lost in the black of the night, and it’s then that he falls back on his well-practiced routine of considering the sorts of Stuart he could be in this moment, and choosing to be the Stuart least damning to his comfort or security. He’d chosen not to worry about Murdoc’s drunken desperation; he’s choosing now not to worry about what Sebastian might have done with it. He’s not stepping up and doing his job out of any loyalty to that man, he’s simply making the choice that allows him to keep his life his own.

The feeling’s all but faded from his fingers now and the wooden handles of the wheelbarrow don’t feel so different from his shovel’s handle, or from his dad’s old club hammer, or from Paula’s reedy bedposts. Murdoc’s weight anchors him forward down the hill’s slope, pulling them both over the bumps of the cobblestone, and Stuart hardly notices the moments when his feet seem to skid right under him, too drained to take control. He doesn’t stop at the gate like Murdoc seemed to that night. He doesn’t stop until he’s at the farthest end of the graveyard, as secluded as he’ll be able to be, and he can only manage a short glance down before he lumbers back toward the entrance to wait for Hannibal. From beside the cracking stone walls, he watches over Murdoc’s faint outline and swallows down the questions he’ll go to his own grave without asking.

Hannibal’s approach is signaled by creaking wheels and hard echoing steps. Stu looks over to find something that only meets the  _barest_ requirements for a casket being pushed on a standing hand-cart the blacksmith had clearly crafted with far greater care. The shoddy casket is little more than a wooden box, the poorly aligned cuts of wood unsanded and unsealed, adorned with nothing but a few mismatched hinges on the side to pivot the flat lid and an odd symbol painted atop it. Stuart doesn’t recall ever seeing the symbol before—the shape sort of reminds him of a goat’s head, but it’s all in abstracts, and he wonders if there’s something to it his head just can’t pick out. He vaguely considers asking Hannibal if it’s meant to be a family crest, but the older man seems firmly opposed to even looking at Stuart, instead looking across the grass to Murdoc’s unmoving silhouette. Stu studies his profile for a flicker of something, but doesn’t really notice that permanent frown deepen any. He drops the tilted hand cart where it is rather than pushing it to the will-be graveside and leaves him alone with the task. The keeper stays silent and lets him go.

Stuart takes the handles and supports the bottom of the cart with his foot until it’s at an angle he can steer, though he has to do so without sight; he relies on his memory of the cemetery to guide him. The casket is secured with thick and overly-long ropes to keep it from toppling off, and once he’s parked it’s no easy task for Stuart to untie them. As the knots loosen one by one, he spools the rope around his arm, noting the length may be enough to use as a makeshift sling for a simple pulley—without any real burial equipment, he’d have to make do, and he wonders if Hannibal had anticipated that and intended any courtesy to him with the rope. He lays the casket down flat in the open patch of grass, and uses the heel of his boot to mark rough dimensions next to it. This would all be much easier in daylight, but that wasn’t really in the cards for them, and if he didn’t work fast the sun would still catch him. With that thought in mind he returns to his quarters for his gloves and a shovel, and he roots around in his maintenance chest full of odds and ends for anything that might serve as a helpful piece to the burial puzzle. The best he can come up with is a set of thick iron railroad spikes, and Stuart palms at his wiry biceps in doubt before accepting the night of intense labor ahead and gathering them up.

He makes his way back the casket and his markings again, and with shovel in hand, he begins digging. The moon grows dimmer and brighter as the clouds move eastbound across it, and he digs. He gets a twinge in his lower back that makes him feel twice his age, and he digs. He can still see Murdoc cradled silently in his peripheral vision, and he digs. As he passes his estimate of 5 feet deep, he questions if he’ll have the strength to pull himself out if he goes much further down. He’s done it in the past, but even at his height, it’s never easy. Thinking about the rope ladder stored away in the quarters, he supposes he could stop now and go back for it, but he’s working against the clock as it is and no one but him will ever know whether this particular grave is standard—the circumstances are not exactly standard to begin with.

Placing his shovel to the side, he collects his strength for a beat and climbs out of the freshly dug grave. He sits at the far end of the casket, and as much as he doesn’t want to, he looks to the wheelbarrow. Murdoc’s face is hidden away from him but he can see the folds of the coat consuming his shoulders and his shoes pressing hard against the edges, and Stuart feels a compulsion to say out loud that he’s sorry this happened to him, that he’s sorry he didn’t do more to give him shelter. Instead, he brings a filthy thumb up to his mouth and bites down on the blunt nail there, wishing terribly that he’d bought those cigarettes he was trying to give up. Telling Murdoc his regrets would be so selfish. A mourning lament from the living doesn’t do anything for a dead man; they’d be empty words said to comfort only him, and of all the heavy-hearted sinners in the world he doesn’t much think he’s the one worth reassuring.

Shaking off the private want for forgiveness, he fumbles for the railroad spikes and begins to stake them into the ground around the hole, four to a side and spaced as evenly as he can freehand them. He presses his foot down hard on the flattened tops to dig them as deep as possible, with just a few inches protruding upward. Gathering the discarded rope from the handcart, he stretches each length taut over the open grave’s width and fastens either side to a spike, creating a functional if impractical system to lower the casket. It’s very limited in design and will require him to untie and retie all of the secured points as he feeds rope downward in small lengths, but it’ll allow him to do this by hand as best as he can alone. He turns the casket on its side, allowing the lid to fall open with some protest from the rusted hinges, and grips the edge to lift it. With some stumbling he raises it far enough from the ground to pass over the metal stakes and places it on the ropes, then cautiously lays it flat again. The ropes hold strong under the wood’s weight and the stakes stay rooted in, and he breathes a sigh of gratitude. There was only one thing he needed to do before he could begin lowering it.

Lifting Murdoc’s body from the wheelbarrow isn’t difficult as much as it is surreal, and Stuart doesn’t know what’s right to feel in that moment. He doesn’t know if it’s sicker to look at him or to pointedly not. He doesn’t know if the weight in his arms should feel like the weight of the world, or if he should feel so light that it leaves a lump in his throat. His chest is still burning and his back is still aching, but he wants to feel that easy, well-defined pain more than he’s ever wanted to before. Murdoc is still and silent in his arms as he strains to kneel beside the casket, but though he tries to rest him inside as gingerly as possible, Stu’s own body feels like it’s screaming. His muscles seize and one dirtied, blistered hand instinctively shoots up from his shoulders to cradle his head as his grip fails him and Murdoc’s legs thump down against the wood.

Breathing shallowly through his nose and shutting his eyes tight, Stu stays like that for a beat before his posture goes lax, his knees sliding out from under him to settle into the grass. One hand stays tucked under Murdoc’s head while the other grips the casket’s edge.

“Sorry.”

He says it without meaning to. He gently pulls his hand away and feels a little better thinking that Murdoc might sneer at that, and surely wouldn’t accept it.

With one last look at his face and an unspoken acknowledgment that _he had been a man called Murdoc Niccals, and he had indeed lived_ —at least one person owed him that much—he closes the casket’s lid.

Now began the process of lowering the casket, a task he’d rarely even assisted with himself and never under these conditions. Starting at the northwestern corner, he unties the generous length of rope from the spike it’s secured to, and feeds a few more inches of it into the grave below. It stays slack at first and he reties the sloppy knot, but as he repeats this with the next staked point the casket tips unevenly, leaning heavier on one side to meet the ropes. There’s a little more resistance when he mirrors this on the other side, but there’s enough support to hold the casket stable. Though slow and hellish on his less coordinated hands, this one-man rope-based system seems to work. In another hour’s time, or perhaps two, he’s successfully brought the casket to the ground below. He unties the ropes on one side completely and allows them to drop down into the grave, pooling atop the lid; circling to the other side, he grips one of the ropes and begins to pull it back up. It’s incredibly difficult with the rope pinned under the weight of the pine box, and Stuart feels absolutely certain he’s going to throw his back out by morning. He supposes Sebastian wouldn’t be able to deny him the time to recuperate, at least. The sky’s becoming stained with shades of purple against the darkness, the approach of sunrise just beginning to saturate the black, and Stuart accepts that he’s not going to outspeed it. Knowing that, it’s easier to pause and stretch out his back, bracing both of his hands against the small of it and looking out across the cemetery toward the grand old house on that hill. It looks exactly as it always had, and something about that makes Stuart feel more discontented than if the image of it had become warped and wicked in his eyes now. That’s for the best though; he knows it isn’t right, but it’s easier if it doesn’t change. Dropping his hands down again, he grabs the last of the rope and dislodges it from under the casket with a forceful tug.

It occurs to him as he fetches his shovel laid next to the unearthed pile of dirt that this is crossing that final step into clandestinely burying a body—giving that reality the weighty consideration it warrants seems like a prospect that will only end badly for him, for the Stuart who gets to have this life, so he tosses in the first shovel-full without hesitation. It’ll be a long morning before it’s done, but the question of his involvement and his culpability is answered the moment that earth touches the lid. He breathes a bit harder, bites down a bit more of the sickness in his stomach, and gathers another shovel of dirt.

The marked wood of the casket is hidden beneath two or three inches of loosened earth when the blacks and purples of the sky give way to the first burst of orange, and the light slowly warming Stuart’s heaving back touches the edges of the grave. Stuart feels the soothing heat of the sunrise, but against this morbid setting it’s robbed of its usual beauty and seems like the least remarkable end to the night he’s had—until that sunlight fills the fresh pit, and suddenly he hears a gasp from beneath him. It’s sharp and it’s jarring, and despite being muffled by the wood and dirt, it sounds in that moment like the loudest noise he’s ever heard. Any rational thought leaves him and he drops his shovel right where he stands, staring in equal parts wonder and horror into the hollow of the grave. All at once, there’s wailing and clawing and kicking, the buried box is practically rattling beneath him with life, and he’s slipping over the dewy grass as he dives down into the grave.

Stu’s gloved hands paw at the earth with wide and desperate swipes, throwing it back and away from himself two handfuls at a time, but trapped within the narrow space he can feel it ricocheting and raining down on him. Murdoc is still thrashing and shouting inside the casket, and Stuart’s voice, held tight in the back of his throat, starts pouring out of him before his mind can catch up with his mouth.

“I’m here! It’s Stuart, it’s… it’s me, I—just hold on!”

His knees are pressing into the dirty splintered wood when he’s dug enough that the symbol finally becomes visible to him. Pushing himself back and wedging a foot on either side of the casket, he arches away and narrowly avoids impact from the lid as he rips it open. Murdoc’s body lurches upward, hands grabbing at Stu’s forearms, his eyes wide and bloodshot. His grip on the keeper is vice-like, but it goes slack as recognition crosses over his face. Murdoc tries to reel his visible panic back in but can’t seem to stop his heaving, while Stuart’s head feels alarmingly light, like he’s sucking the air right out of him.

“You’re alive,” he breathes; it isn’t a question. “You’re… you’re alive.”

Murdoc grits his teeth in an effort to slow his gulps of air. “Keen eyes there, keeper.” His mouth curves down in distaste but his voice sounds weaker than he’s ever heard it.

Stuart hovers over him, unsure how to process what’s happened. Murdoc seems disinterested in processing anything about it and pushes against his chest to shove him backward, drawing his legs in and trying to get his footing. His attempt is shaky at best and there’s no chance he’ll be able to pull himself out alone. Stu stands to his full height again and climbs up onto one side of the casket, his chest now level with the muddy edge; the wood’s extra boost and the grave’s shortened depth give him more than enough reach to plant his hands firmly in the grass above and lift himself up with a great heft, one long leg swinging upward and just barely making contact with the ground level, but giving him the leverage needed to free himself. He adjusts onto his knees and reaches back down into the pit to offer his hands to Murdoc. The shorter man looks skeptical but latches on, fingers digging tightly into the fabric of his coat as he clings above his elbows, Stuart’s large gloved hands doing the same. Lifting him out is a struggle, and Murdoc grunts and curses with the effort. Stuart has to loosen his hold to instead grip him about the waist, prompting Murdoc to grapple for his shoulders. The taller’s knees slide and spread painfully against the wet grass as he pulls him toward the surface. When he finally manages to haul the other man out, Murdoc all but collapses onto him and the two lay flat, exhausted and breathless.

“Get… a goddamn… ladder next time.” Murdoc pants against his collar, and Stu tries to conjure up the memory of his breath on his skin from before to compare. It was warmer then, wasn’t it? He knows that can’t be true and his mind is surely playing tricks on him, but… was this really alright? He hasn’t forgotten about the blood staining Murdoc’s shirt, or about Sebastian’s disquieting behavior. He’s grateful that the calling of the other’s death seemed to have been premature, _must_ have been, but he still doesn’t believe it was an accident that befell him.

Questions thrum in his ears, but he isn’t sure what answers he hopes to hear.

“Murdoc, what... what happened to you?” Stuart asks. His hand almost finds purchase in Murdoc’s hair to pull him back, but he hesitates and instead touches his shoulder, nudging him off. He shrugs Stu away, pushing himself to a sitting position with a wince.

“Thought I’d practice holding my breath ‘til I’m fit to swim the Channel and got buried alive from the looks of it, yeah?” He grins at him, but there’s a nasty, derisive edge to it. Stuart doesn’t understand how he can be joking right now.

“Come off it. You’ve got blood—“ Stu reaches a hand toward the other man’s chest, but the pain in his muscles and Murdoc’s challenging glare stops his movement. “You were bleeding, Murdoc.”

“Don’t tell me you thought I’d cut my heart out over our little midnight misconduct.” He deadpans. Murdoc looks down at his flattened pose, sweaty and spent, and leers. “S’not a bad view, mind, but you’re not worth all that.”

Stuart swallows hard, his frown sincere. He doesn’t have any fight in him over this.

“I didn’t think it was _you_ that did it.” Murdoc’s eyes seem to grow duller and move off of him to settle on anything else. The sunrise enveloping them with the tranquil, romantic glow of pinks and reds seems entirely wrong for this situation. The wetness of the grass is seeping into his trousers and he’s agonizingly aware of every individual notch in his spine, and that seems a better match for Murdoc’s pointed silence beside him.

Stuart is just able to push himself up onto his elbows when Murdoc wavers to his feet, trudging away with stiff but hurried movements. He’s heading back to that house, Stu notices, and his stomach tightens.

“Do you…” he starts, the offer feeling like sandpaper on his tongue. “Do you want to stay in the keeper’s quarters?” He avoids tacking on _with me_ , fully intending to find a separate bed for the night with a doe-eyed bargirl who’ll draw him a bath and wash his hair; a girl who’ll feel as warm as a person _should_.

Murdoc shoots an unimpressed smirk over his shoulder but doesn’t slow his pace. “With you pouting that your back’s out? I won’t waste my invitation on a night you’re all laid up. How ‘bout a housecall when you can bend again?”

Stu knows that he should insist, knows that he should take responsibility for the crime he’d awoken in the midst of and trust his gut, but it’s easier to let him go. He has no real grounds to stop him. Murdoc is a grown man, and he isn’t Stuart’s friend, he isn’t Stuart’s ward, he isn’t Stuart’s _anything_. It’s not as if Sebastian would never learn of his son’s presence if he began staying in the quarters, and he didn’t exactly have the means to give Murdoc another option to turn to. Rolling onto his side and reluctantly lifting from the ground, he staggers toward the quarters, leaving his tools and the gravesite to be sorted out later. He’s only just reached the doorway when he spots someone by the outer cemetery gate, the one opposite the Niccals estate—it looks like Hannibal, standing with a shovel slung over his shoulder. He watches Stuart for a moment, tilting his head back meaningfully, then turns away. Sebastian’s odd, ominous words echo in his skull and he doesn’t know what to do with them. He chooses to lock his door and collapse onto the bed, pressing either side of his pillow up over his ears to smother the old man’s voice.

The months following this event are some of the quietest of Stuart’s life. Sebastian never offers him an explanation for what happened to his son, nor does he express any real surprise at Murdoc’s return to the estate. What he does offer Stuart is a small cash bonus for his efforts (and for his silence, Stuart reckons) and the occasional bottle of red wine or dark liquor. Sebastian’s voice has the same unaffected quality, but he has a straightness to his spine and a life in his eyes that rings very wrong to Stuart at his age. He builds the courage—or bows under his guilt enough—to inquire more into Murdoc’s home life, but his replies remain as dodgy as they are debauched. Murdoc seems to prowl about the graveyard to steal glances at him even less as a result of this newfound interest in his wellbeing. He rarely catches him drunkenly staggering through the cemetery late at night now, but that’s because Stu himself so rarely spends more than one night at a time in his own bed. The girls at the bar love to smooth their hands over his hunched back and pour him drinks on the house or sneak him fresh bread off his tab. He likes to hang his head heavily but chance small, grateful looks at the doting barmaid or curious patron, his smile more haggard than charming and his eyes inky and bottomless, inviting her to drown in them. He’s _nauseatingly_ successful. They bring him into their warm homes and warm baths, lathering his broad shoulders and caressing the calluses on his fingers while his other hand holds one of the cigarettes they’ve kept for him. They grip tight to his shaggy hair and cradle his jaw, telling him he’s beautiful, he’s like nothing they’ve ever seen. He’s cared for as if he were their child or husband, and for the night he wants for nothing. It’s strange, but the more he is rewarded and the more revered his presence becomes, the less connected he feels to that world. He lives inside of it but still feels as if he’s looking in from elsewhere, as if his head’s just too mucked up to be present with his body. Paula, of course, is still ever the holdout—he stays with her least of all and he’s never seen the inside of her bathroom, and he finds he appreciates the jolt of wanting in his chest that boundary inspires.

Four months from the incident, it happens again. Déjà vu swarms Stuart’s mind as Sebastian calls him up from the quarters with wheelbarrow in hand, and the sight of Murdoc’s small, still body is chillingly familiar. Neither his father nor his brother make any excuses or fake mourning for his benefit, and Stu knows he’s losing his chance to say that this isn’t an accident and he isn’t okay with whatever sick ritual is happening here—but the part of him that makes the real decisions knows that he’s already shown himself to be okay with what was truthfully the more morbid outcome by going along before. Hannibal deposits him into the wheelbarrow with even less care than the last time, and in a surprising gesture, claps Stuart roughly on the shoulder and mutters about bringing the casket. Stu had fastened ropes around it and dredged it back up from the grave days after at Sebastian’s request, and returned it to the eldest Niccals. The thought of seeing it again is strange, but the weight of that can’t register in his mind when it’s already so heavy with the question of whether Murdoc would open his eyes again come morning.

He’s back at the graveside before he realizes he’s made the trip. Unlike the first time, where the sight of Murdoc in the wheelbarrow forced his eyes away in shame, Stuart can’t stop himself from staring; he tilts his chin up to examine the rigid lines of his face and touches his neck softly, feeling for a pulse and finding none. There are red stains dotting his shirt again and Stuart skirts his fingers over them, refusing to press down enough to really feel the body beneath. He knows this may be something he’ll be unable to carry on in denial after seeing, and there’s a selfish urge in him not to look, to keep his plea of innocence fractionally more secure. He apologizes under his breath to Murdoc and begins to unbutton his shirt with jittery fingers, just enough to peel it back from the wound. The smell of copper is present again, and Stuart’s hands stall over the fabric for a beat. Someone has to see, though. It has to be him.

The symbol carved shallowly into Murdoc’s chest, directly over his heart, matches the symbol painted atop the casket. It’s angular and abstract, and though the blood’s gone mostly dry, the smooth and straight lines are freshly cut. He knows this can’t be a remnant from months ago, and the sour pang in his stomach claws at his throat because he suspects it’s no trouble to Sebastian to simply reopen a scar. He presses his palm against the wound, ignoring the stickiness and the fading warmth, and feels as firmly as he can for a heartbeat; he can hear his own racing, but he can’t find Murdoc’s.

Stuart feels like he’s floating outside of himself as he repeats that night’s tasks with disturbing efficiency. The time spent digging is still lengthy and arduous, easily swallowing most of the evening, but his time preparing and utilizing the secured rope system is nearly halved. He’s ready to finalize the burial with time to spare before the sun begins breaking through—but he means to watch it rise, pulsing with hope and with fear at what seems assured to happen. He sits tentatively at the grave’s edge, staring down at the symbol masked in the darkened pit, and he waits.

The colors of sunrise flood the air about him and flow down into the open grave, illuminating the symbol in a swath of morning light. Stu holds his breath as he leans forward, listening for the first signs of Murdoc stirring… but he hears nothing. Time enough passes for him to smoke a cigarette and unfurl his rope ladder, the orange hues swimming with the fog fading to cloudy-whites, and the warmth of the sun beaming down on him does nothing to ease the cold blooming inside. He doesn’t believe this could really be right, but has to wonder by the same token what’s right about putting Murdoc through something so unnatural again. His fingers are numb as they sink into the soft dirt he’s unearthed, and he idly shapes it to his palm. Once his strength is gathered Stuart stands and grabs for his shovel, collecting a modest bit of dirt on the end and tossing it onto the casket, because what else is there to do? Maybe he’d wanted an alternative to the morbid reality that simply wasn’t there.

The dirt scatters across the lid on impact, and it’s like a switch is flicked inside the casket; there’s a desperate gasp of air and crazed scratching and thumping follows, and another version of Stuart might find it unsettling that he’d experience anything remotely like relief or gratitude at such a horrible display, but this Stuart isn’t listening as he plunges down into the pit to release Murdoc.

The lid is practically torn open in haste and Murdoc snaps out of his frenzy at the sight of Stuart looming over him, backlit by the sun now hung fully in the sky. He doesn’t push Stu away this time, but instead lifts his hands unenthusiastically and signals the taller to help him up. He’s much steadier on his feet and the displeased creases of his face soften when he sees the rope ladder, thankful he wouldn’t be dragged from the earth like an unwanted root again. Stu still has to support him with a hand on his back as he climbs, his physical state struggling to catch up with his mental, and he falls to his side near-bonelessly in the grass all the same. It prickles against his skin, warm and dry now in the late morning. Stuart settles delicately next to him, still recovering from the night of digging but his aches less exaggerated than before. The cemetery is quiet for several minutes save for their gradually-steadying breathing.

“Have you got a light?”

Murdoc looks at him in confusion, and Stuart produces a cigarette from his breast pocket, popping it between his teeth.

“I didn’t know you smoked.” Murdoc remarks and then winces, presumably at how fragile his voice sounds. Stuart has both hands dug into his trouser pockets, searching, and the force of it pulls at his suspenders.

“I’ve been trying to quit,” he says distractedly, “s’not really working out. I think I lost my matchbook down there.”

“That stuff’ll put you in an early grave, you know.” Murdoc’s chuffed smile at that could light the town square. “Where’s mine?”

“I’ve only got the one.” Stuart dismisses, tucking it behind his ear. Murdoc pushes himself upright with a wheeze.

“Sure you do. Tell you what, I’ll bring you a matchbook when you bring me a cigarette.”

Stuart goes silent and looks over at Murdoc, his brows straight and serious, pitch-black eyes unreadable. Murdoc stares back, his expression unchanging.

“And when would that be?” Stuart asks, “The next time I’m burying your body?”

Murdoc doesn’t answer him, turning his attention down toward the open casket. The sunrise had flattered him with its gauzy warmth but in the clear, bright light of day, Stu can see how his tanned skin has gone a bit ashy and pallid, his yellow undertones almost seeming green beneath the surface. He presses a hand into the soil like Stuart had, fitting it to his palm for a lack of anything better to do. His eyes shut tightly for a moment and he breathes out though his nose.

“Don’t have to be buried. Just a handful is enough.”

Stuart blinks at him, slow and uncertain. “What?”

“Dirt. On the lid. Try to keep up.” Murdoc bites. “You’re supposed to be some sort of fly-by-night undertaker, aren’t you? It’s tradition.”

“This is the second time you’ve been dead in my arms and you’re talking like I can expect a third—I would call that nontraditional.”

Murdoc glances back at him and smiles, cool and casual, like that’s all the conversation is.

“Fair turn. It’s a show of respect, then—“ His tone is so unperturbed, Stuart can’t stand it.

“I saw the symbol on your chest. The latest one, I mean. From where I’m sitting I have to reckon your dad put it on you.” Stuart reaches for his shoulder before he realizes he’s doing it, and drops his hand limply to his side. He wants to ask what Sebastian’s getting out of this, but sympathy pools in him and instead he asks, “Is this… what you want?”

Murdoc ignores him and throws the clump of dirt he’s molded into the grave.

“It’s really quite strange, that first handful. You sort of feel it like the wood’s another skin. S’unlike anything else, I don’t think I could explain it.” He bites down on his lip, mashing it crookedly. One side tugs upward, but it's not something Stu would call a smile. “If you’re lucky, the day you’re buried will be the first time you’ve ever _had_ to feel the weight of the earth above you. You think you’ve been lucky, keeper?”

Murdoc’s looking at him full-on now, his words giving Stuart pause.

He thinks about the accident, and how hard it was to accept a single moment he couldn’t even remember changing the course of his life. He didn’t really feel any different in the aftermath, he felt like all of the world around him had changed. When he looks at his reflection, he doesn’t see eyes like glossy black river stones or bloody fractured anomalies—it just doesn’t even register to him that his eyes are there at all. He looks to himself like something hollow and haunted, and he understands more than he’ll admit about why he can hold a bottle so much easier than he can hold a book.

He thinks about his mother, the Sunday roasts he still has with her once a month or so. She tells him she loves him but she never speaks to him in her own voice anymore, and it’s enough to make Stuart question if he’s knocked his memories out of place and put them back together wrong. He can’t force his brain to recognize that lilt and it gives him an itch in his teeth. She packs up the herbs grown in her garden for him, home remedies for the pains in his head, but whenever she looks in his eyes for too long she curls her fists tight to her stomach like she had been the one struck ill instead. He pretends he doesn’t notice; he knows the grief for a man he isn’t hurts her worse than it does him.

He thinks about the girls at the bar and how entrancing they find the odd visage he makes. It’s never right, the way they look at him, but it might be _better_ than right. They’re pretty and pliant and they wish they could give him all of them, every bit, no matter how little he gives back. They tell him he’s wonderful with a sincerity that tingles all the way down his spine in a fleeting surge of fulfillment. When he’s with them, he stops feeling like something less than human, and begins to feel like something more than human. He thinks about the version of himself who could stay like that, who could hold an ink pen steady enough to write poetry about their souls or their smiles, who could sort out the static in his head long enough to tell them any of the things they deserved to hear but he just doesn’t know how to think. The lives he’s missing don’t eat at him the way they used to, and he doesn’t know if that’s something to be counted lucky for, but he still tongues the space where his front teeth used to be and wonders if Paula would’ve liked him better if he’d had them all.

He doesn’t answer Murdoc’s question, but Murdoc seems sated enough by his silence. He’s stood over Stuart watching him think, and he plucks the cigarette from behind his ear as he walks past, heading back toward his father’s estate.

“Be seeing you, Stu.”

Stuart stays rooted to his spot as the refreshing morning turns to afternoon heat against his back, his gaze trained on the dark of the coffin. Sweat begins to bead at the nape of his neck, but he doesn’t move to wipe at his brow, his hands still clutching at the ground’s muddied edge. He wonders how he must look, how closely his eyes mirror those of the dead buried all around him. He wonders if the world looks at him the way he looks at Murdoc.

He decides that that isn’t something he’d like to wonder about.

 

* * *

 

He hasn’t ever really stopped wondering it, though. Stuart slumps forward at the graveside, his elbows coming to rest against his thighs, and frowns at his own thoughts. Murdoc’s severe features are becoming more and more visible as the sky lightens, and Stuart allows a quick murmur of prayer to escape. He doesn’t really mean the words, but he feels like someone should make an effort to mean them.

Murdoc would never tell him more than he had to about the ritual, but through his cooperation over the years he’s gathered enough. Sebastian had stopped looking his age long ago, and he’d never looked a day older since. Stu’s sure the man is pacing the halls of the estate now with no desire to do anything more than look down on his land from his little hill, even stripped of glory as it is, and know it would _always_ be his. He expects the Niccals line to carry on another decade or ten with the patriarch at the helm, and Murdoc is the sacrifice needed to make that happen, if only for the night. Stu can imagine Sebastian’s cold eyes and colder tone justifying what he’s done to his son: it’s the _least_ he can do for the family. Like the many thoughts that leave Stuart ill-at-ease, he does what he can to fit it into a box and store it for another time.

The first glow of morning spills over the grave, and suddenly Murdoc jolts to life with a harsh gasp, his eyes flying open and long nails springing up to grab at the sides of the casket. His gaze falls on Stuart looking down at him and he pants out a few more labored breaths before shifting his expression from bewildered panic to his best approximation of apathy. It’s not his most convincing shot at it.

“…What are you looking at? It’s rude to stare.” His voice is dry and warbling. He swallows hard after getting the words out and proceeds to make an array of bizarre, unattractive noises in the back of his throat, trying to find his right timber again.

“Just some green old codger, s’all.” Stuart replies, his brush with remorse softening into amusement at Murdoc’s noises. “Come on now, my neck's getting sore from looking down.”

“Can you give me a minute? I’ve just risen from the dead, you prick.” He spits, scowling at Stuart’s cheeky smile. “Fuck’s sake, you think I’m ready to hike up my skirts and do the bloody splits for your pocket change?”

“Don’t think you’d make much for that.”

“Yeah, well, I did in my twenties.”

Murdoc sits up with a groan and stretches to either side, rolling his neck and popping his knees up and down.

“Would it kill you to put some cushions in here? I know the old crone next door got a real classy hookup, all soft and satin. She’s not even enjoying it!” Stuart’s read the headstones and knows his great grandfather is buried nearest him, but he doesn’t correct him.

“I made you a pillow, ingrate. You didn’t notice?” Murdoc turns his head in disbelief a spots a thin and lumpy sack of fabric where his head had been. It looks like a paisley kerchief stuffed with what was probably half of his own pillow’s fluff, giving them both a worse product than what he’d started with. It’d seemed fairer at the time, but he can tell now he really isn’t crafty enough for it to be worth it. Stu had also added in bits of lavender his mum grew for his head troubles, but now that Murdoc’s awake and no more relaxed than usual he’s reluctant to admit that. That sort of tenderness is just embarrassing between them if he doesn’t get to take credit for something with it. Murdoc looks back up and his dour face cracks with mockery.

“What a pretty scarf. Did Lord Niccals promise you my dowry if you’d make a proper lady of me?”

“Don’t count on it. Your cotillion was a disaster; he’d owe me more than that estate’s worth. Let’s go, come on now.” Stuart drawls, gesturing up with faux-impatience.

Murdoc flips him the bird and clambers to his feet. He grabs onto the rope ladder and with a great heave lifts himself up in slow and unsteady movements. His drawn brow quivers and his mouth is pulled tight in a strained wince, and Stuart knows Murdoc hates for him to see his face so unguarded; he watches his hands gripping the rope instead. After an agonizing minute Murdoc falls onto the grass beside him, rolling onto his side and pushing up with a bit more grunting and cursing.

“Tell me—“ he stops to wheeze, spots the bottles of brown liquor and grabs one for a swig without reading the label, then finishes “Tell me you’ve brought smokes.”

“When have I ever not?” The other tuts.

Stuart brandishes his metal cigarette case, a gift from the birthday that fell between their meetings, and waves it for Murdoc to admire. He pops the clasp open with his thumb and brings it to his face, but falters in smoothly pulling a cigarette out with his mouth. He eventually gets it right, but not before wetting half of the contents with his damp breath. Murdoc has a laugh at that and admonishes, “You burn it, Stu, you don’t need to romance it.”

“Give us a light then.” Stuart says around the cigarette dangling from his lip, proffering another from his case with the wrong end pointed toward him. Murdoc doesn’t bother telling him he should turn them the other way and just plucks it out, flipping it over his knuckle as he digs his fingers into his breast pocket; a few seconds too many pass before a deep frown settles over him. He pats his torso down and nearly looks back over his shoulder into the dark of the casket when he catches Stuart’s grin, far too satisfied over far too little.

“Oh, you thieving twat,” he spits, expression souring even further. “Is that what passes for a joke in your sad scrambled brain? That’s pathetic, s’what that is.” Stu chuckles at him and strikes one of Murdoc’s matches, then gestures for him to come closer to share.

“You’ve got quite the rotten attitude, has anyone ever told y’that?”

“And you’ve got a piss-poor graveside manner. It’d stop my dear old nan’s heart all over again if she knew what a sorry sod had put me in the ground.”

Murdoc sucks in his first breath of smoke so deeply that Stu worries he might lose balance as he leans back, his feet popping up and practically kicking in satisfaction. After a lengthy pause and some hissed swearing, smoke pours out of his nose and billows over his chin, dissipating in the morning air, and Murdoc lets out a euphoric noise that Stuart can almost feel the frequency of.

“ _Fuck_ , that’s nice,” Murdoc stage-whispers, then flits a hand in Stuart’s direction. “I forgive you.” Stuart snorts and nods appreciatively. He’s missed Murdoc’s flair for the dramatics.

Murdoc doesn’t ask if his father paid his respects, because he already knows the answer. Stuart doesn’t ask if there's an afterlife, because he doesn’t want to know. They instead fall into the easy push-and-pull of trading insults and fixating on the other's ever-plentiful faults, relaying overblown and inaccurately detailed stories of their (truthfully dreary) months apart, and sloshing bourbon on their trousers as their toasts grow more frequent and less coordinated.

The sunrise reaches its most picturesque height and washes over them, glimmers of orange and pink caught in the thinning fog, and the two are briefly suspended in a dreamlike state. The world looks very unlike the one Stuart knows in a single detail—for a moment, bathed in warm light so vivid against his dull skin, Murdoc looks the most like the man from his memory he’s seen in years. Stuart can almost believe he’s looking at a person no less alive than himself. There’s something comforting and something profoundly sad about how close to right he is, but as he twists his mouth and scrunches his nose at a seedy anecdote he’s likely told before, Stuart finds himself staring at the muddy gray-green in the shadows moving across his face, and he knows that  _close_  isn’t close enough.

His story of dubious authenticity trailing off, Murdoc meets his gaze and holds it; never one to shy away from Stuart’s corpselike stare, he brings his cigarette back to his lips and takes another pull. Observing a moment of serenity isn’t really a sustainable pastime for him, though.

“…Given any more thought to that shag?” Murdoc asks, smoke escaping from the smile curling lecherously up his cheeks.

Stuart feels barbs of sickness snare in his gut, because he does think about it. He thinks about what might have happened if he’d taken Murdoc home, if he’d drank his hesitation away and pressed into him like he’d asked. He thinks about Murdoc’s tongue in his mouth, tasting of smoke and not of rot. He thinks about the filthy things Murdoc would say to him, and if they’d ever be as sincere and reverent as the hymns of the bar girls. He thinks about Murdoc’s sunken eyes and his boozy breath, his smirk subsiding and the angry shape of his mouth pulling his face down unflatteringly, spitting crude remarks in a way Stuart doesn’t find especially charming. He thinks Murdoc’s never really been a happy man… and he doesn’t think of himself, damaged and disaffected, as capable of changing that.

He thinks he did want Murdoc that night. He knows he wouldn’t have wanted him forever.

“You’re a little overripe for my taste.” Stuart replies, punctuated with an exhale of smoke between them.

Murdoc barks a laugh. “You wound me, Stu, you really do.” He’s grinning wide now, but Stuart doesn’t look at him.

Maybe this is the better outcome for him. For Murdoc, given his perpetually spirit-soaked liver, it’s most certainly the  _longer_  outcome. Stu sets his jaw and pretends he doesn’t really understand the difference, because the alternative would be admitting that the son nodding his agreement under his father’s knife didn’t really get to decide that fate, and the keeper who’d followed the burial ritual without deviation for almost two decades had been complicit in trapping him in that house, in that coffin, in that ever-decaying skin. It doesn’t really matter that he hadn’t been the one to open the wound, because he’s failed to do anything to close it. He’s too proud to entertain that he consistently made this choice out of a fickle want for companionship. He’s too selfish to acknowledge keeping Murdoc suspended between life and death has made an awful, ghoulish puppet of him, and that Murdoc should resent him for that. He’s too alone, and much too drunk, to accept he could have let Murdoc go tonight.

Stu glances at Murdoc and catches him sniffing inside the open flask, eyebrows knitted together curiously.

“What is this?”

“S’a new sort of gin, only without all the sawdust. Been brewing it in London for years from what I heard, getting it right before they start peddling it.” Stuart stubs his cigarette in the grass and flicks what remains into the open grave. “Er... Eliza brought it back for me.” He winces as he says it.

Elizabeth was a wealthy widow who hung around the pubs a night or two a month, plump and pleasant and often seeking company. It was not uncommon for her to give gifts or pick up tabs; she didn’t seem to value her money much, and was fortunate enough to not especially need to. Elizabeth was kind, but she wasn’t interested in real attachment—she just didn’t want to be alone. Stuart had an intimate understanding of that. Murdoc did once as well, but Stu is very aware that Murdoc hasn’t known her, or any of the girls ‘round the pub,  _intimately_  for quite some time. He’s heard the whispers and even sidestepped gossiping questions himself about the sickly-colored, pungent drunkard sat secluded from the other patrons, cajoling and cackling at the unlucky bartender until, many hours in, he’d at last go mercifully quiet and stumble out into the streets. Murdoc could once manage rather well for himself despite what Stuart would generously call his “innate misfortunes” on charisma alone, clearly fancying himself a bit devilish and alluring, as foul as he was; but as every year passes he grows greener and fouler still, and opportunities for human touch stretch thinner and farther apart.

Murdoc grunts in acknowledgment and doesn’t look particularly put off by the mention of her name, but that doesn’t quell the discomfort Stuart feels. He’s accepted charity from Eliza that Murdoc would never offer, but he’s also been party to what Murdoc is in a way he never hopes to be to another, and he feels he owes him more. He feels he has  _taken_  something more.

“It’s… it’s strong. Asked her to bring me something strong,” Stuart tells him, and he doesn’t know why. “Try it slow first.”

Murdoc bristles at the instruction. “Don’t tell me how to drink.”

He brings the flask to his lips anyway and throws his head back, letting the burn of it fill his mouth and holding it there to taste, swishing it through his crooked teeth. He barely has time to swallow before Stuart’s all he can see, bigger than he was before, closer than he can remember ever seeing him, and suddenly there are lips pressing into his. The kiss is hard and closed-mouthed, and then it’s gone.

He pulls away before Murdoc can even react, and it’s all he can do to keep from retching. Murdoc’s astonished gape melts into a bright, earnest smile, and it’s so real and so grateful that the waves of guilt Stuart carries inside all the time now threaten to drown him. Murdoc tosses what’s left of his cigarette and practically crawls into his lap, chasing after the smallest touch because he has no worldly reason left not to; unfortunately, Stuart can’t say the same.

He lifts his hand between them and thumbs at his nose only to give him reason to cover his mouth. Murdoc knows that signal, much as he may wish he didn’t, and leans back to watch him with a cautious optimism. Stuart keeps rubbing at his lower face until he’s pulling and stretching his lips with the harsh scrub of his palm. A few moments pass until, behind the shield of his hand, he finds his voice again.

“I know that you… and it’s not that I don’t… I jus’, I thought if I could get something stronger, it might be enough to...” He mutters, low and shaky. He feels sick from the spoiled, putrid taste of the other man, but the prospect of saying that out loud to him feels far worse than the sting of bile. “…I don’t think I can stomach it, Murdoc.”

Murdoc’s smile lingers, but the brightness of it grows dull as his eyes look past Stuart at nothing in the distance. He hums a noise of understanding, or just of acceptance, and it rattles terribly in Stu’s head.

“Can’t say I blame you for that.” Murdoc admits, scratching at his jaw and letting one long nail catch on his lower lip, prodding the skin there as if considering it.

_You should_ , Stuart doesn’t say. He doesn’t say anything at all.

Murdoc drums his fingers against his knee before smacking it with his open palm, then braces against it like he means to stand.

“It’s been a blast, really, one for the books. Keep in touch—“ he starts, but Stuart cuts across him.

“This doesn’t have to be it, jus’ getting pissed in the dirt a few times a year. We could… go to the pub sometime. Sit together, have a pint. We could be...” Stu pauses. His head feels heavy and he struggles to fill in that blank. He doesn’t think any of the things they could be are really what Murdoc wants. “...Better?”

Murdoc gives him a wry sort of smile, but it’s tender, and it’s thankful. It’s something he can’t fathom coming from the man sitting an arm’s length away from the grave Stuart put him in.

“That’s not better for you though, is it? All it’d do is shoot your chances of getting laid to shit. Look at me, mate. I can hardly pay a skint pervert to watch me turn and cough." Stuart thinks he's joking, but he never quite knows with Murdoc. “Word gets out you’ve been passing time with the rank remains they prop up at the bar for a bit of gossip and a giggle, and I’d chase your whole flock away—and you’re not going to be pretty enough to bring ‘em back forever.”

It’s true, and they both know it is; if it wasn’t, they wouldn’t have kept up this needlessly isolated routine past year two. Stuart wishes he were the sort of person who could really value the weight of a charitable gesture at his own expense, but it’s awfully late to start being that person now. The space Murdoc leaves for him to object is filled only with reluctant silence.

He thinks Murdoc should make him shoulder that and let his selfishness hang heavy and quiet around them, but the other man can't seem to resist acting as something of a compulsive mood-breaker. He pulls a face like he’s deep in thought, and the mock-compassion in his eyes makes Stuart want to scowl, already assured it’s a sign of nothing good.

“Actually, I’m not so sure you’re still pretty enough now. The crow’s feet distract some from your dead eyes, I suppose.” Murdoc cocks his head to the side and squints with consideration, and it’s not a very good look on him. That’s almost an upside about Murdoc: he makes doing the wrong thing a little easier, at least.

“We can’t all stay young.” Stuart replies, shrugging one shoulder. “You might’ve considered starting a little younger, though.”

Murdoc grins at him, and it shouldn’t look so good-humored, it shouldn’t even be on his face, but it is. If he does think the keeper deserves to feel beholden to him, then he must know it bites worse not to show it. Stuart’s more afraid he doesn’t think that at all, though.

“Mm, didn’t know my prime when I was in it. Hindsight’s a real cunt.”

Murdoc ambles to his feet, swaying a bit but waving off Stuart’s steadying hand. He tucks the flask into his front pocket without asking if he could take it, and Stu lets him.

“Alright then, you can have that back in February. Same time, same place?” Murdoc asks, throwing in a wink. He walks toward the path again, weaving between headstones decently well for someone with his blood alcohol level, and if Stu were a better person he’d reject that and resolve never to see him alive in this place again. If he were a better person, he’d do something more to give him peace.

“…I’m sorry.” He calls out, throat tightening. Murdoc stops and turns back to him wonderingly.

“For what?” Stu can’t even count it all.

He’s sorry that he slept soundly in those quarters while Murdoc died in that house. He’s sorry that he’s valued Murdoc’s company above Murdoc’s quality of life. He’s sorry that he’s played a hand in binding his future and rotting away his skin. He’s sorry that he didn’t take him in that night. He’s sorry that he decided what Murdoc could’ve given him in life wasn’t good enough—the smartest part of him still believes that’s true, but he’s sorry that he’s justified this end with it. He’s sorry that he’s so messed up in the head that he finds him sort of handsome in this light, even knowing it’s a lie. He’s sorry that he can’t follow through with that.

He settles for “I’m sorry I kissed you.”

Murdoc laughs at him, not sarcastic and ugly but genuine—and still a little ugly. He pinches the swell of his lip between his thumb and index finger, his teeth grazing over the nail there, and he studies Stuart. The small contented smile that forms under his touch is truly fond, and Stuart’s never seen a more unearned admiration. Murdoc looks at him like he’s big and brilliant as the sun, but he feels smaller than he did as a child holding onto his mother’s apron strings.

“I’m not.” Murdoc replies, and with that he’s turning back to the walkway.

Stu sits drinking for a while longer before gathering the empty bottles in his duffel bag again. He’d return to retrieve the casket and fill the grave after a day of rest.

It’d be merciful of him to cut that lid off the casket, to build his own just as poorly without that damned symbol and attach it instead, nailing every side shut after. Or maybe he could carry Murdoc’s body by carriage to the Channel and let the water take him. If he were a good man, a respectable man, he’d not let this continue, even if it ruined him to end it. But he’s only 40 and he thinks he’s still got another decade or two of graveyard keeping left in him, and he could use a little company. When his back finally gives out under age, or his liver, or his lungs—maybe then he’ll be big enough inside to let Murdoc go. Maybe he’ll do right by him and choose to be the better Stuart when he's too old for it to matter.

He stoops by the grave’s edge to gather up his rope ladder and his drunken balance wavers, and he thinks it’d be just if he were to fall right into that casket and knock his head on the way down, but he carries on yanking at the stakes recklessly knowing that it won’t. He’s never answered Murdoc’s question, but he’s grown sure of his luck with time. There were things he couldn’t understand then that he can see quite clearly now. He’ll have loving hands on his shoulders tonight, fearlessly gliding over his skin, gripping it down to the muscles to soothe his pains away. He’ll have bread in his stomach tomorrow, and tobacco in his lungs after that, and he’ll probably have a couple more birthdays with his mum before she joins his dad at last. He’ll be alone, in brief glimpses, but it’ll never matter the way it does for the man in the coffin—he’ll only really be alone when he lets himself be alone. In truth he’s lived a life untethered to his promises and potentials and passing desires, and he couldn’t know that until he’d seen a life shackled by the very same.

He’s known Murdoc, so he knows he drew the lucky lot.

**Author's Note:**

> That's a wrap on the, uh... weird and sad 1900's graveyard keeper AU. I hope this was as draining of an experience for you as it was for me. Anyone who powered through this whole mess, I really thank you so much! Feedback is really appreciated, I'll never know where the acceptable Bummer Limit is otherwise! And I promise that if you'd like to stop by [tothedarkdarkseas.tumblr.com](http://tothedarkdarkseas.tumblr.com), we can have a chat about these old men that is... happier? Still bleak, but less bleak? One of those options, guaranteed!


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